18 watter at church again..more on caffine

Played the 18 watter at church again...my playing was much better this week. I mounted the 18watt on a board to keep folks from gettins shocked until I get a cab built. Love the sound..big full, even through my cheap cab. Now through the Vet 30 in my other cab...big mojo going on. The Celestion g12L-40H is a cheap speaker...less lows, smaller magnet...less db. All that is well and good for the church gig. If I play live somewhere else...use other cab.

Am going to Home Depot today to get boards to start on the cab with. Hope to work on it one night this week. Would love to get it cut out, finger jointed and then drilled this week. Then I can at least mount it in the box to use will I can work on it again. I would then do the stays to hold the front and back, then cut the front and back out and start working on the inlay for the front. Have a place to get faceplate material...so I need to go by there and get it and drill and mount it. Plan to get it engraved too. We shall see. May just get wood and do face plate first...
This is going to take a few weeks.

Still holdin out on no or low caffine...energy levels are ok...still not up to par yet...
k

school is almost here

My son is not looking forward to school starting....my 4 yr old is. My wife is ready so she can have a routine. I am ready, so things will settle down...
fun I guess.
Hope to grill tonight....swim a little and relax. Has been a long week.
Did get to see RUSH tuesday night in Atlanta...was a great show as always.
Playing the 18 watt again Sunday. May build a scratch cab to put it in until I can build a proper one...just don't want to get shocked or break the amp in the mean time.
kirk

18 watter at church...caffine again...

Amp did well at church. Sound was nice, my playing was off....had a brain lapse in the middle of one song and had to rethink what I was doing completely= not fun.
My mind is not thinking as fast on it's feet right now. Wonder how long it will be before my brain gets back up to speed? I hope soon. I have to be able to think to play.
Will be working on the cab later in the week...need something to put it in. Don't really want some kid going over there and shocking himself on all the DC voltage running around in there.

no caffine day 8 and the 18watt goes to church

Today is 8th day of no or low caffine. I feel fine. Am very relaxed...still. Still get tired easier than I did before, but I supposed that will change in time. Honestly, it is like my mind is in relax mode all the time. My only concerns are how I will handle stress, whether I will gain weight.

On another note. Fender is acting up and in shop..so the 18 watt get a call a few weeks early. Now I have to get the cab for it finished pronto. May build a scratch cab for it so I can safely play it and then build a better one later...we shall see.
k

Caffine......

I have been for many years...at least 20 years...a serious coffee hound. I all started when I was in college. Working evenings, nights and weekends at the radio station. The diner at college always had coffee on too. I graduated and went to work...they always had coffee. I was consuming 6 to 10 cups a day...sometimes more. Funny thing though. I could go home and just go to sleep. It takes 4 or five cups back to back for me to feel the caffine. Since I was just constantly sipping on it I never really reached a buzz most of the time..but my body was taking count, it liked it.
Enter 2007. In 2007 I began to notice my ears were ringing a lot. Low rumbles. I have always had, at least as long as I can remember, some tinitus. Too much music, guns and weedeaters growing up I guess. Not too bad though, not distracting. I began looking for reasons. I tried ginko this year for a few months, it helped some. Then I was reading....caffine can cause ringing, not a good thing...I love coffee.
So I tried reducing my caffine for a couple days to just morning coffee...maybe a little at night. End of day my ringing would subside some, then after morning coffee...it would increase a little. It still was there very prominatly. I decided I would bite the bullet and try going off caffine for at least a month or so...almost completely.
Do you know how hard that is? Coffee is everywhere. Coke is everywhere. Black tea is everywhere. I have had to readjust my whole thinking.
I took a one cup coffee maker to the office. Am now making one cup of decafe at a time. Am also drinking a cup or two of green tea during the day...yeah it has 40 mg of caffine in a cup, but I consider that acceptable, since the tea lasts for a long time..you can't chug it like I do coffee. It would make you nausiated. I drink it unsweet too. (my coffee is always black by the way).
What has happened? Well for the first day I was ok, a little tired. Monday I was friggin exausted all day. Tuesday was a little better. Wednesday I could still feel it.
What am I feeling. It's like my whold body achs....is tired. It just wants to go to sleep. Addiction withdrawal. Not fun, but not bad IF I can keep going. Is like I am on the edge of fatiegue. My mind is the biggest thing. I am not trying to wax philosophically, but my mind feels different.
I feel mellow. It's like before I couldn't wait to just jump into a conversation. My mind would race at things to think about as I constantly ran into situations. At the moment it as if my mind is trying to take in all the scenery it has missed for the last 100 years. My skin feels different...or at least my tacktile senses do. Have not eatin any multi contextural food...ie complex flavors, so I do not know how this has effected my taste buds. I suppose until the caffine withdrawal finish everything maybe effected. Will it change back? I can't say. It is almost like I have read drug addicts talk about how on cocaine, speed or what have you...everything feels different. Since I have been on HEAVY caffine for the last 20 years...I guess I don't remember what it feels like to NOT have caffine effecting my nerves. I feel calmer. I feel not so relaxed right now, but I can feel it easing. Will post again in a few days.
Decafe coffee is like drinking coffee without something. I know it isn't there, and it does taste slightly different...I still like it though..just have to find some good stuff or mix it half and half to get some more flavor.
Eventually I guess I will be able to stand a cup of regular in the morning or when ever...but I don't think I will ever be back on the coffee barge...why.
Over the last 5 days the ringing in my ears has changed pitch. NO more low rumble, less high hiss. Hope it continue to subside. We shall see. More later.
k

18 watt post 16

Took the 18 watt to praise band practice tonight. Worked very well. Hooked up my dd3 delay and a DS1 distortion to use as a boost.. (no drive). Was able to control the drive and tone of the amp by the guitar vol controls. Roll it off...it cleans up, cut it back up and it drives like crazy. Nice....exactly what i wanted. And very touch responsive.
Working on the head cab now. Hope to have it done in a couple weeks.
Will keep ya posted.
Kirk

18 Watt Post 15

I rewired front end of the Lite IIb tonight. Coax is a little more microphonic than I like, but it is quite. NO VZZZT... so I will leave as is for now...until I come across a piece of shielded wire that I find suitable.


Here is a pic of the chassis front..there is a post Phase Inverter Master Volume, a tone, and a Volume. (have almost convinced myself to remove the MV.)





Sounds nice....no noise...
Have a A/B switch on order from Musicians Friend. I need it to use with this amp. The low gain channel had a ton of tone and crunch. But roll the guitar vol to 7 and it clean right up. The High gain channel has a lot more pop to it. So, with the A/B box, I can have a clean, crunch and Lead gain...without doing much. Yeah, I know a lot of folks would say use one channel or the other, or use a Tube Screamer...but the amp has it, and has the tone...so I don't want it to go to waste. Will be playing this one live soon...getting boards tomorrow to work on cab.
k

18 Watt post 14

Well, I couldn't leave well enough alone. I noticed that the low gain channel has a little bit of buzz in it, so I have decided to rewire the input section again. I went and got some smaller shielded coax..was orginally done with a piece of guitar cable...which is very bulky. We shall see how this comes out. I think the noise is from the fact the cabling i used before is stranded and is under some strain with the solder joint being unsupported..so every time I poke it, it crackles..or when is vibrated by music...does same..albet very faintly..still I want it gone.
Will see how it goes.
Let you know.
kirk

18 watt post 13

I got rid of the noise. Took me a couple days of poking around, but I got it. I reflowed the solder on the board. Didn't fix it. I reflowed the input jacks and that didn't fix it. I went and got a chopstick and started poking...found it. The wire going from the input jack to the first preamp tube for the high gain channel was not soldered well...it went zzzzz when i pushed on it. I unsoldered and resoldered the wire and now it sounds ever better than before, more gain and better highs.
Now, back to chopsticking. Why use a chopstick or other similar object? Electricity kills. The voltages in the amp I have been building are over 300v dc...more than enough to kill you. Don't think about using a pencil either...graphite in pencil lead is a conductor of electricity. Chopsticks, wooden dowels, a plasitc rod...anything that won't conduct will work.
Have karate tonight. When I get back I plan to record the amp and post the clip and some new photos.
k

18 watt post 12

I could not stand it. I got up this morning and went over the layout in about 15 min. and made sure my ei's were dotted and my tee's were crossed. Went and got my mimi mass (attinuator/dummy load)...flipped the 18 watter upside down and plugged ac power and the MM in. NO tubes-flipped the switch. Measured AC and heater voltages...350 vac to the rect pins (yeah thats high, but no load form tube heaters)...checked heaters on all sockets..hmmm..looks good so far. Popped in the EZ81 rectifyer tube...Voltages to the PT and pretube sockets look good. Put in the el84s...still looks good. Put in the pres...all voltages look good!
Hooked up a speaker and with no guitar...cut the vol up...a little faint ac humm...ok, good so far...plugged in a guitar... 1/2 up..jangle jangle...I'm liken it!....wide open.....HOLY COW!
I started playing "ALL RIGHT NOW" ...and the tone was so there...backed the vol off and it just purrs...OH YEAH baby...das what I'm talking about. There is a little overring (fuzz after notes)..probably a cold solder joint...will shorten a couple wires and reflow the joints in the morning..but all I got to say is....YES....that is how a Marshall 18 is supposed to sound...at least as far as the internet recording I have heard of them.....BINGO....
I am in narvana right now...(will get back to narvana after I go cook some hotdogs and watch some fireworks...happy 4th all.)....
MORE LATER....with sound clips.
kw

18 watt Post 11

Cool, got the parts in from AES and finished wiring up the amp tonight....here is what it looks like from the bottom side.

Tomorrow night I will take a copy of the layout and highlighter and go over everything one more time. Friday I plan to test it...hopefully no fireworks. Hope to have a good report on it Friday, maybe even a sound clip.

After it is successfully working and debugged I will begin cabinet construction. Thinking pine, finger joined....with a nice poly finish. I may do something special with the front panel, don't know yet....more on that later.

Bedtime....Later.

Kirk

karate

I have gotten back in to doing karate again, Shotokan specifically. They have been teaching it out at the college and I could just about kick myself for not getting back into it sooner. It provides a good form of exercise and stress reflief. Have a possible test coming up late July..if I am ready I will test..at present I do not feel properly equipt to handle said test. No matter, since there is a test in November I believe. I am currently at 5th kue. There are 10 kues from white to black. If I stick with it I should, if all goes well, be able to have black by the end of 2010...maybe. If not I will keep trying. Beats going to the YMCA and running on a tread mill.
k

18 watt Post 10

Got all the wires to all the pots, sockets, switches and jacks completed. Tonight we put in the standoffs and set the board in. Should take about an hour to wire up everything to the board. Before I do that though I plan to zip tie and shrink tube some wires to make it much neater in there. I have been shortening the wires as I have been soldering them. The shorter the wire, the less the noise.
Did order my 2 .01uf (10nf) 400v caps that were missing and a black Ampeg style handle for the cab. We shall see how it all works out....caps should be here by thursday...I am off the 4th...sounds like the 4th is going to be a day for fireworks..hopefully not from the trannys in my amp.
Here also is some non earth shattering news about the amp. Yes it is an 18 watter...but I have to have a name for what I call it. Instead of a Lite IIb....it shall bear a name plate with the name of "Hamlet".... IIb or not IIb...that was the question...what to build ...since I am a Shakespeare fan...and as the question was put in the play....be true to yourself...and have a nice day.
k